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Catallactics
Catallactics is a theory of the way the free market system reaches exchange ratios and prices. It aims to analyse all actions based on monetary calculation and trace the formation of prices back to the point where an agent makes his or her choices. It explains prices as they are, rather than as they "should" be. The laws of catallactics are not value judgments, but aim to be exact, empirical, and of universal validity. It was used extensively by the Austrian School economist Ludwig von Mises. Catallactics is a praxeological theory. The term catallaxy was used by Friedrich Hayek to describe "the order brought about by the mutual adjustment of many individual economies in a market." Hayek was dissatisfied with the usage of the word "economy" because its Greek root, which translates as "household management", implies that economic agents in a market economy possess shared goals. He derived the word "Catallaxy" (Hayek's suggested Greek construction would be rendered καταλλα ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Austrian School
The Austrian School is a heterodox school of economic thought that advocates strict adherence to methodological individualism, the concept that social phenomena result exclusively from the motivations and actions of individuals. Austrian school theorists hold that economic theory should be exclusively derived from basic principles of human action.Ludwig von Mises. Human Action, p. 11, "Purposeful Action and Animal Reaction". Referenced 2011-11-23. The Austrian School originated in late-19th- and early-20th-century Vienna with the work of Carl Menger, Eugen von Böhm-Bawerk, Friedrich von Wieser, and others. It was methodologically opposed to the Historical School (based in Germany), in a dispute known as ''Methodenstreit'', or methodology struggle. Current-day economists working in this tradition are located in many different countries, but their work is still referred to as Austrian economics. Among the theoretical contributions of the early years of the Austrian School are the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ludwig Von Mises
Ludwig Heinrich Edler von Mises (; 29 September 1881 – 10 October 1973) was an Austrian School economist, historian, logician, and Sociology, sociologist. Mises wrote and lectured extensively on the societal contributions of classical liberalism. He is best known for his work on praxeology studies Bureaucracy (book), comparing communism and capitalism. He is considered one of the most influential economic and political thinkers of the 20th century. Mises emigrated from Austria to the United States in 1940. Since the mid-20th century, libertarian movements have been strongly influenced by Mises's writings. Mises' student Friedrich Hayek viewed Mises as one of the major figures in the revival of classical liberalism in the post-war era. Hayek's work "The Transmission of the Ideals of Freedom" (1951) pays high tribute to the influence of Mises in the 20th century libertarian movement. Mises's Private Seminar was a leading group of economists. Many of its alumni, including Friedri ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Praxeology
In philosophy, praxeology or praxiology (; ) is the theory of human action, based on the notion that humans engage in purposeful behavior, contrary to reflexive behavior and other unintentional behavior. French social philosopher Alfred Espinas gave the term its modern meaning, and praxeology was developed independently by two principal groups: the Austrian school, led by Ludwig von Mises, and the Polish school, led by Tadeusz Kotarbiński. Origin and etymology Coinage of the word ''praxeology'' ('' praxéologie'') is often credited to Louis Bourdeau, the French author of a classification of the sciences, which he published in his ''Théorie des sciences: Plan de Science intégrale'' in 1882: However, the term was used at least once previously (with a slight spelling difference), in 1608, by Clemens Timpler in his ''Philosophiae practicae systema methodicum'': It was later mentioned by Robert Flint in 1904 in a review of Bourdeau's ''Théorie des sciences''. The modern def ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Catallaxy
Catallaxy or catallactics is an alternative expression for the word "economy". Whereas the word economy suggests that people in a community possess a common and congruent set of values and goals, catallaxy suggests that the emergent properties of a market (prices, division of labor, growth, etc.) are the outgrowths of the diverse and disparate goals of the individuals in a community. Aristotle was the first person to define the word "economy" as ‘the art of household management’. As is still a common method of explanation today, Aristotle tried to explain complex market phenomena through an analogy between a household and a state, take for example the modern analogy between the national debt of a country's government and a simple consumer's credit card debt. Aristotle used a common Greek word 'oikonomia' that meant "to direct a single household," and used it to mean the management of an entire city-state. The word catallaxy aims to provide a more accurate and inclusive word fo ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Friedrich Hayek
Friedrich August von Hayek ( , ; 8 May 189923 March 1992), often referred to by his initials F. A. Hayek, was an Austrian–British economist, legal theorist and philosopher who is best known for his defense of classical liberalism. Hayek shared the 1974 Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences with Gunnar Myrdal for their work on money and economic fluctuations, and the interdependence of economic, social and institutional phenomena. His account of how changing prices communicate information that helps individuals coordinate their plans is widely regarded as an important achievement in economics, leading to his prize. Hayek served in World War I during his teenage years and said that this experience in the war and his desire to help avoid the mistakes that had led to the war drew him into economics. At the University of Vienna, he studied economics, eventually receiving his doctoral degrees in law in 1921 and in political science in 1923. He subsequently lived and work ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Free Market System
In economics, a free market is an economic system in which the prices of goods and services are determined by supply and demand expressed by sellers and buyers. Such markets, as modeled, operate without the intervention of government or any other external authority. Proponents of the free market as a normative ideal contrast it with a regulated market, in which a government intervenes in supply and demand by means of various methods such as taxes or regulations. In an idealized free market economy, prices for goods and services are set solely by the bids and offers of the participants. Scholars contrast the concept of a free market with the concept of a coordinated market in fields of study such as political economy, new institutional economics, economic sociology and political science. All of these fields emphasize the importance in currently existing market systems of rule-making institutions external to the simple forces of supply and demand which create space for those fo ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Exchange Ratio
In political economy and especially Marxian economics, exchange value (German: ''Tauschwert'') refers to one of the four major attributes of a commodity, i.e., an item or service produced for, and sold on the market, the other three attributes being use value, economic value, and price. Thus, a commodity has: * a value, represented by the socially necessary labour time to produce it (Note: the first link is to a non-Marxian definition of value); * a use value (or utility); * an exchange value, which is the proportion at which a commodity can be exchanged for other commodities; * a price (an actual selling price or an imputed ideal price). These four concepts have a very long history in human thought, from Aristotle to David Ricardo, and became ever more clearly distinguished as the development of commercial trade progressed, but have largely disappeared as four distinct concepts in modern economics. This entry focuses on Marx's summation of the results of economic thought about ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Price
A price is the (usually not negative) quantity of payment or compensation given by one party to another in return for goods or services. In some situations, the price of production has a different name. If the product is a "good" in the commercial exchange, the payment for this product will likely be called its "price". However, if the product is "service", there will be other possible names for this product's name. For example, the graph on the bottom will show some situations A good's price is influenced by production costs, supply of the desired item, and demand for the product. A price may be determined by a monopolist or may be imposed on the firm by market conditions. Price can be quoted to currency, quantities of goods or vouchers. * In modern economies, prices are generally expressed in units of some form of currency. (More specifically, for raw materials they are expressed as currency per unit weight, e.g. euros per kilogram or Rands per KG.) * Although prices ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Value Judgment
A value judgment (or value judgement) is a judgment of the rightness or wrongness of something or someone, or of the usefulness of something or someone, based on a comparison or other relativity. As a generalization, a value judgment can refer to a judgment based upon a particular set of values or on a particular value system. A related meaning of value judgment is an expedient evaluation based upon limited information at hand, where said evaluation was undertaken because a decision had to be made on short notice. Explanation A ''value judgment'' is a thought about something based on what it “ought” or “should” be given an opinion about what counts as “good” or “bad” — contrast from a thought based on what the facts are. E.g. “The government should improve access to education” is a value judgement (that education is good). “People will buy less of our products if our price goes up” is not a value judgement because it is based on the fact that people tend t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Human Action
''Human Action: A Treatise on Economics'' is a work by the Austrian economist and philosopher Ludwig von Mises. Widely considered Mises' ''magnum opus'', it presents the case for laissez-faire capitalism based on praxeology, his method to understand the structure of human decision-making. It rejects positivism within economics. It defends an ''a priori'' epistemology and underpins praxeology with a foundation of methodological individualism and laws of apodictic certainty. Mises argues that the free-market economy not only outdistances any government-planned system, but ultimately serves as the foundation of civilization itself. ''Nationalökonomie: Theorie des Handelns und Wirtschaftens'' is the 1940 German-language predecessor to ''Human Action''. Synopsis Mises sees economic calculation as the most fundamental problem in economics. The economic problem to Mises is that of action. Man acts to dispel feelings of uneasiness, but can only succeed in acting if he comprehends caus ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Richard Whately
Richard Whately (1 February 1787 – 8 October 1863) was an English academic, rhetorician, logician, philosopher, economist, and theologian who also served as a reforming Church of Ireland Archbishop of Dublin. He was a leading Broad Churchman, a prolific and combative author over a wide range of topics, a flamboyant character, and one of the first reviewers to recognise the talents of Jane Austen. Life and times He was born in London, the son of the Rev. Dr. Joseph Whately (1730–1797). He was educated at a private school near Bristol, and at Oriel College, Oxford, from 1805. He obtained a B.A. in 1808, with double second-class honours, and the prize for the English essay in 1810; in 1811 he was elected Fellow of Oriel, and in 1814 took holy orders. After graduation he acted as a private tutor, in particular to Nassau William Senior who became a close friend, and to Samuel Hinds. Early married life After his marriage to writer Elizabeth Whately ( Pope) in 1821, Whately l ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Price Signal
A price signal is information conveyed to consumers and producers, via the prices offered or requested for, and the amount requested or offered of a product or service, which provides a signal to increase or decrease quantity supplied or quantity demanded. It also provides potential business opportunities. When a certain kind of product is in shortage supply and the price rises, people will pay more attention to and produce this kind of product. The information carried by prices is an essential function in the fundamental coordination of an economic system, coordinating things such as what has to be produced, how to produce it and what resources to use in its production. In mainstream (neoclassical) economics, under perfect competition relative prices signal to producers and consumers what production or consumption decisions will contribute to allocative efficiency. According to Friedrich Hayek, in a system in which the knowledge of the relevant facts is dispersed among many pe ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
